German insurers halved their exposure to the sovereign debt of Greece in the year to March and slashed holdings in Irish, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian debt, according to a report for Germany's parliament.

Their exposure to Greek debt fell to 2.79 billion euros in March 2011 from 5.83 billion a year earlier; Irish debt holdings fell to 3.89 billion from 7.13 billion; Italian debt to 20.04 billion from 27.79 billion; Portuguese debt to 2.79 billion from 4.50 billion and Spanish to 9.06 billion from 20.93 billion.

The data came from a report on German insurers' exposure to sovereign debt prepared for the finance committee of the lower house or Bundestag, which was obtained by Reuters on Thursday.